The Curious Bulb:

Being a cyclist, I had a dream to visit a Deutschland. During the cycling tour here in India, we all co-cyclist use to talk about the cycling nation and the infrastructure available there by means through the internet world. It was fascinating all the way round. This is how I started thinking and believing the dream to visit there. To present my anecdote here, Murphy’s law of attraction worked for me. Whatever I manifested, thought about, was close to feel in near future. The time was Jan 2020. Got planned for one of the official work at Rijswijk office in Netherlands (Holland) and travelled to the destination as per plan.

Start from the travel plan and ticket booking to Netherland, I was curious about the cycling nation and the cyclist. The way they use cycle for their daily commute was impressive. I was barely observing a Dutch person without cycle. Very well-organized bicycle to carry kids and belongings shows their thinking towards the healthy and sustainable future. Settled in the student Hostel, the hotel where I got my accommodation in The Hague. Thought to take a Bicycle on rent for few days of the tour. With intend, I got a complementary wheels, a Bicycle from the hotel itself. Was happy more what Murphy’s planned for me. Jokes apart, I dragged myself in reading the cycling rules from day first and took out the cycle on third day with pumped confidence of cycling and the better routes. Pedaled 2-3 days to office as well for H2O commute. While doing the FAT and commuting to office, was thinking to explorer the new routes for commute. Google helped me but aerodynamically dragged to something superb and curious. The FAT schedule was little tight and because of the weather conditions my exploration paused and started reading the local magazines.

Don’t know how I got started reading about the flower looks like a bulb. Before it was just a bright colored flower for me and not even thought that the flower itself has a long history. I was literally not so much fascinated about the flower before with such a phenomenal existence on the mother earth until I met to our official re-locator Miss Re-nate in Rijswijk who helps for the relocation paperwork in The Hague.

It will be very injustice if i won't talk on The Hague, a city in South Holland province known as Den Haag, with more importance in the Holland political and geographical status located on the western coast of the country. The Hague, Dutch s-Gravenhage or Den Haag, the site of the royal residence. It is situated on a coastal plain, with the city center just inland from the North Sea. The Hague is the administrative capital of the country and the home of the international court and government, though Amsterdam is the official capital.

Being a Dutch and the work she does, she has a great knowledge of the country. She narrated me the stories of the flower to develop the curiosity day by day and I started reading about the Bulb, the blooming Dutch Tulips.

 

Ask the question, what is the national flower of the Netherlands? And people will answer, the Tulip. However, most of us know, the Tulip is not originated in Netherland. Then this is how the curiosity looked backed in to the history of Tulip’s origin and believe me, it’s as surprising and as high as the long stem of the magical flower. This flower not just came to Netherland a straight way but with taking some roundabouts and several turns across the sea.

While tulips had probably been cultivated in Persia from the tenth century, they did not come to the attention of the West until the sixteenth century. Popular in the courts of Ottoman Empire (Turkish Empire), several blossoms of tulip flowers were given as a gift to an Austrian ambassador in the 16^th century. The Austrian ambassador had a fond of gardening and he sent those blossoms to the imperial garden of Emperor Maximilian II. There was the perfect pioneering and the botanist Carolus Clusius, perhaps the most influential character of the entire 16^th century scientific horticulturist and a botanist.

Upon the death of the emperor, Clusius was dismissed and travelled on to eventually become ‘Prefect’ (It’s a magisterial title or a leader of administrative area) of Leiden University’s botanical garden which exists to this day and is the oldest in Europe. He started cultivating the tulip, for the purpose of understanding them better. And that became the start of the Dutch BULB industry, which is still flourishing today. This is one of the historical births or so called origin of this flower. This mesmerized me to time when my grandmother used to tell me the story of the Kings and their kingdoms. I was more than happy to read the further stories of this pretty flower.

Bergen, a great place to start your visit of the so called Bollenstreek (A bulb region) is the today’s village of Bergen. Bergen is a village and municipality in the Dutch province of North Holland. The municipality is a popular tourist destination, mainly because of the beach and the seaside resorts along the North Sea coast. Though it seems quite modest, it is home to surprising 30K inhabitants, and its history is a small scale version of the nation’s history. The oldest object is an urn, a tall, rounded vase with a stem and base, especially one used for storing the ashes of a cremated person. That was found in the Netherland in the second century AD, and the village itself is mentioned in the documents from the 10th century as per Wikipedia. In 1280, it was granted the status of Craftsmanship. A craftsmanship or simply a craft was the smallest administrative unit in the countryside. These middle or low delights of a craftsman were issued on loan by lords such as counts, bishops and dukes.

From there the village’s history wrote its own special chapter. After St. Elizabeth Flood of 1421 which ranked 20^th in the list of worst floods in history just like Mumbai 25^th July 2005 flood. The flood was during the night of November 18 to November 19, 1421, a heavy storm near the North Sea coast caused the ridges to break in a number of places and the lower lying tract land was flooded. It has been conveyed; in this flood a small box or container found which contained sacramental bread. The fact that this bread was in these vessels made or declared sacred. It was considered as a body of Christ and could only be consumed by a priest. The small box also contained sea water and because of it also it was considered as sacred. However, the pastor found it as less appetizing and poured in to the bowl and left as it is. In 1422, approximately a year later, the water in the bowl not surprisingly dried up and left behind the residue looks like reddish in color. This was immediately seen and declared as a blood of the Christ and given the name “Holy Blood of Bergen” or “The Miracle of Bergen”.

To see this holy thing, there started the rush of pilgrims and subsequently started the construction of the church in north of the Holland. During the WW-II, the church was burned down and then rebuilt with the name “Church of Ruins”, the destroyed church. The so-called holy blood was carrying the red seed and got buried in the land and seeded into the miracle, the Tulip.

   

When i was experiencing and reading about the Tulip, there was some paradox happening in the Southeast Asia with the coastline of the Pacific Ocean or the Country of Taoism. A big danger was on the surge. Was following through the BBC news however the impact and the turbulence to the world was beyond imagination. WHO named it as COVID-19 and rest, we all went through the unpleasant experience. 😊